Dwelling in an "Altar"-ed State

Click here to eTo date I have created/co created many thousands of altars. For new moon, full moon, birth, death. To plants, animals, planets, goddesses, wishes, fears. An altar to say “please”, to say “thank you”. Altars made for and with strangers. Altars with other women, spread across the globe, in sisterhood lighting flames together at just the same moment. Unlikely altars, the best of all.

An altar is a place to make offerings and sacrifices. It is a point of worship, ritual, ceremony. Altars make fast, powerful magic in an instant.

Again and again my body serves as an altar. An altar in the crook of my arm while nursing an infant, an altar with feline curled asleep behind my knees, an altar with my back pressed against the wall legs wrapped around a lover’s waist. And always, when dancing, when the music alone places invisible hands, lips, spine against me. ..melody makes an offering, demands a sacrifice.
In a galaxy, far, far away, my ex-husband would see me clearing clutter to build some small space of beauty in the chaos and equate it with “straightening deck chairs on the Titanic”. (P.S. Witches and Atheists maybe not quite same vibe level?)

As a practice, altar building and altar observing are essential to my work on the Medicine Wheel. That Medicine Wheel itself is a living altar with directions filled by the Stone People, Star Nations, Green World. We all know the feeling of walking through the woods or the wide world and finding those altars, perfectly made by wind, wit, or whimsy. We know the medicine when we see it.

A Gentleman Friend and I had a clever way to refer to the ecstatic trance where found ourselves meeting in body and soul. We added the magic we co-created to joke about our “altar-ed state”. Really, an intentional space, where meaning is layered over what we see with our eyes, where offerings are made, where a stone fucking cold miracle takes over.

Living in an altar-ed state is my instinct and my imperative.